BHOPAL: EC has taken suo moto cognisance over the statement of BJP’s Bhopal candidate and Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur who told a bunch of party workers on Friday that she had cursed 26/11 martyr Hemant Karkare a month before he was killed by terrorists.“The matter was reported by our surveillance teams. We have taken suo moto cognisance and it is being examined,” chief electoral officer Madhya Pradesh V L Kantha Rao told TOI.

It is noteworthy that a video of Pragya Singh Thakur is going viral where she is heard saying that Karkare died because he “tortured and abused” her during the Malegaon blast probe. Karkare, the Mumbai ATS chief, was given the Ashok Chakra, India’s highest peacetime gallantry medal.

“You can't imagine how he tortured and abused me,” she is heard saying in the video with sitting MP Alok Sanjar and Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma by her side. “The head of the investigating team called Karkare and told him, ‘if you don’t have any evidence against her, let her go’. Jailing someone without proof is illegal. But he refused. He said he will get evidence from anywhere but ‘won’t let Sadhvi go’,” she said. “This was desh droh (treason). This was against dharm.”

The party workers meet was held in the minority-dominated Bhopal North assembly segment.

“I know it will be difficult for you to believe, but I told him, ‘Tera sarvanash hoga (you will be destroyed). He tortured me so much, hurled filthy abuses, it was unbearable for me,” she said. Taking off her glasses, she broke down.

“That was the day,” she continued. “There is a ‘Sutak’ (period of abstention in Hindu families) of a month when someone is born or dies in the family. That day ‘Sutak’ came into effect for Karkare. Exactly sawa mahina (5 weeks) later, the day, he was killed by terrorists, ‘Sutak’ got over,” she said, as party workers break into applause.